Melissa McCarthy

Parks and Recreation ends its seven-season run Tuesday night on NBC. To celebrate the show’s unforgettable characters, Flavorwire is publishing a series of tributes to our favorite Pawnee residents. Click here to follow our coverage.

The most shocking thing a fat woman can do is to have a loving boyfriend — especially a loving boyfriend who finds her genuinely attractive, instead of merely developing an affection for the quirks of her misshape in the way one finds a crooked nose or awkward birthmark sort of adorable over time.
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Oscar night is just around the corner, and there’s a decent chance that you’re spending this week finally getting around to seeing The Imitation Game or whatever. But if you’re all caught up on this year’s nominees (or, good for you, utterly indifferent to the whole shebang), good news: this week’s new disc and streaming releases include a couple of last year’s acclaimed but largely unrecognized pictures, a terrific under-the-radar thriller, and a new HD release of the last film by one of Japan’s cinematic masters. Oh, and one of the year’s most nominated titles is out there now as well, if you go for that sorta thing.
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Last night, during NBC’s celebration of Saturday Night Live‘s 40th anniversary, viewers were treated to three hours of familiar faces and sketches — both live sketches and montages of classic ones. And just like every other episode of SNL, the new sketches were hit or miss. But there were still plenty of gems found in the mix. From the successful return of fan favorite “Celebrity Jeopardy” to a wonderfully long segment featuring Maya Rudolph’s perfect Beyoncé impression, here are five SNL 40 sketches everyone will be talking about.
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Somewhere around the scene where Vincent takes little Oliver to the racetrack, I realized that Bill Murray was playing the Walter Matthau role, if St. Vincent had been made in the early ‘80s. (Marsha Mason would’ve done the Melissa McCarthy role, by the way. Herb Ross would’ve directed, from Neil Simon’s script. I gave this a lot of thought.) On one hand, I’m fully on board with this metamorphosis, because Vincent is a vintage Matthau curmudgeon — hard drinking, chain-smoking, grouchy and bitter, but a pussycat underneath. On the other, Matthau’s late career is a lesson in how that persona can be declawed and defanged into something cute and cuddly and comparatively uninteresting. That’s not what happens in St. Vincent, which is a lovely little movie with a lot of laughs and a good heart. But it’s a warning signal for a direction Murray’s career could take, if he’s not careful.
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Hey there reader, been to the movies lately? If the box office reports are any indication, I’m guessing not — and who can blame you? We’re currently in the weird dead zone between the tentpole blockbusters of the summer and the prestige, Oscar-friendly pictures (and, increasingly, tentpole blockbusters) of the fall. But relief will be here soon enough, so in the interest of helping you mark up your movie-going calendar, we’re looking ahead to the fall films we’re anticipating most.
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